Exodus
by Kucherovian
Summary: Don Julius, in the midst of his treatment, believes he has received a secret message from Marketa, feeding his obsession and igniting a ruthless desire to escape Castle Rozmberk to find her.


At long last, freedom.

Don Julius leaned forward in the saddle, urging his mount to charge up the hill at a frantic pace, the animal's hooves thudding wetly in the cold, muddy soil. His arm thrashed unrelentingly at the horse's heaving flanks, his throat expelled near-freezing air in a terrifying roar that defied the creature to flag in its headlong dash. Weeks of confinement, of wanly languishing in his bed, seemed to nip at his heels as he fled the castle, and he did not heed the bewildered and irritated pleas of Heinrich and Franz, left far behind on their inferior mounts. His exodus would not be denied nor delayed by those who failed to keep up.

Reaching the crest of the hill, Don Julius had no intention of slowing. The open fields flew past dizzyingly, the forest beyond closing fast - speed was cleansing him of the opulent stench of the Castle Rozmberk, washing over him like rushing water. He closed his eyes, sucked a deep breath and unleashed it again in a triumphant bellow over the horse's head, causing the animal to flatten its ears more firmly and lengthen its stride yet more. Don Julius laughed, exhilarated, stole a glance over his shoulder to see that his companions had been lost utterly. His teeth bared in a smile, and he jerked the horse toward an opening in the trees, the blood on his hands causing the reins to slip slightly in his grasp. A fallen log, crumbling and sodden dark with early winter moisture, appeared in the horse's path, and the steed cleared it with a heavy grunt, Don Julius leaning over his neck, rejoicing in the brief soaring sensation.

Amongst the trees, the young prince allowed the horse to slow to a graceful trot over the brown, wet leaf drift, softening its tread to a rhythmic beat that matched his own racing heart. His face flushed and pink, he peered behind him once more, saw that he had not been followed into the trees, and smiled again. His sycophantic servants would face the ire of his father for allowing him to slip their watch; he cared not for what consequences would befall them. His only thoughts were of escape. And of Marketa.

_Marketa_. She was waiting for him, surely. He had at last deciphered her cryptic, unspoken communications, and understood now that she intended to receive him at a nearby creek in the woods. Marketa and water were one; she of the baths and magical green water. It would be impossible to consummate their holy union in the plain sight of the Vltava, thus she had arrived at a deliciously secret alternative for Don Julius - a hidden haven in the forest, where the water trickled playfully, musically, over the rocks. _Marketa. Marketa!_ How ingenious she was, how clever and resourceful. As she would be, the keeper of every secret that had teased and tormented him from the vellum pages of the Coded Book of Wonder. And soon - very soon - she would reveal to him each of these secrets, would unlock the door to the meaning of his existence; the door against which he had bruised and bloodied his soul for a lifetime.

Yes, he had at last understood her intentions for them to attain privacy away from the castle. Only last night, as he had observed her from his high castle window yet again, had her meaning become clear to him. Don Julius's lower lip, reddened from his headlong flight in the chilled air, stretched in a smile as he remembered the moment of his enlightenment.

He had taken up his evening perch in his window, his eyes locked on the bathhouse door below on the opposite banks of the Vltava, where eventually his Marketa would emerge with her stained crockery for their nightly dousing in the river. Don Julius had not seen Marketa any closer than from his seat in the window for several weeks - not since she had attended his last bleeding, wide-eyed and enigmatic - and he yearned to be near her. To close his fist around her long, brindled hair, to consume her secrets with his very mouth over hers... to taste them flowing from her and into his very essence. Restless in the window ledge, the prince drained the last of his wine and tossed the chalice carelessly away, where it clattered across the floor. Village life wound down slowly in the periphery of his vision as the skies began to darken, but Don Julius's eyes never left the bathhouse door.

And, at last, Marketa appeared below in the dusk, carefully laden with numerous bowls and instruments, her hair flowing over her shoulders and back like a river of gold and copper. Don Julius sat up straighter, licked his lips, his gaze focused sharply in the failing light. He whistled shrilly in the biting chill of the air, pleased with the way the sound echoed across the river. Marketa immediately looked upwards to him, hesitated briefly, then knelt at the water's edge to begin her task.

Don Julius whistled again, shouted to her. His head buzzed with wine, love and magic, a harmonious soul-song that overrode and obliterated the voices that tormented him. His angel, his princess, was the sole entity capable of driving away his demons - only she could silence them. Only when she was near, only when he could see her, were they mute.

But she had ignored his shout; Don Julius's brow furrowed in confusion and worry. Impatient for her to look his way once again, he leaned out of the window and bellowed at the top of his lungs - a full throated, royal roar that no commoner would dare ignore - and was rewarded when Marketa paused in her rinsing to turn her face and eyes upward once more. _Yes, yes! _He had her attention. He thumped his chest over his heart with his fist, flung his arms wide in an open embrace: an invitation there would be no mistaking.

Marketa watched, frozen, then resumed her chore without response. Breathing heavily, Don Julius observed her, his eyes fixed on her small, white hands as they worked. They swooped around inside each bowl like slim, graceful fish, flashing and capable. She poured water from one bowl to another, back and forth, and stole a glance upward at him.

His heart stopped.

_There! She speaks to me through her hands, through symbolic meaning - just as in the Coded Book! _Mesmerized, Don Julius watched as Marketa poured the water back and forth between two bowls several times, watching him from beneath her wild hair. He did not breathe. Across the distance, even amidst the dim rushing of the Vltava, he could hear - or imagined he could hear - the tinkling sound of the water she poured. Excited, he jumped from his seat in the window ledge and stood tall as the realization came over him that she had just sent him a message. One only he would understand.

Delirious with his epiphany, Don Julius yelled happily to her an affirmation, so that she would be sure that her intentions had been interpreted accurately. Marketa gathered her crockery and instruments, threw him a final, furtive sidelong glance, and departed the river for the bathhouse. As always, when she disappeared for the night, Don Julius felt a stab of loss, and the sweet hum that had sung through him in her tantalizingly distant, brief presence began to immediately stutter and fade. His jaw tightened, he pressed his fingers to his eyes and groaned. Then he remembered: Marketa's message. She had spoken to him as plainly as if she had shouted across the Vltava: her hands had mimicked the gentle flow of a creek. Without doubt, she intended for Don Julius to understand this as the location where they would meet. A place that was to be theirs, and theirs alone.

Don Julius's mind raced frenetically; he turned from the window and began a rapid, chaotic pacing of his room, ignoring the servants who had entered to light the chamber's chandelier and numerous other candles. Their presence disrupted his passionate ruminations; the benign, conversational murmur amongst them caused him to ball his fists and grind his teeth. When he could tolerate it no longer, he ordered them out with a resounding howl of rage and a violently overturned candle stand, sending them scurrying from his fury to leave the chandelier only half lit. Don Julius returned to his window, though he knew Marketa would not reappear in the dark, and leaned on the stone sill, his arms stiff, rocking and swaying in agitated impatience. Which was the creek Marketa had indicated with her swishing crockery?

His mind retreated to several months before, on one of his earliest riding excursions through the countryside, before his father had decreed that Don Julius's banishment be contained exclusively within the castle. There had been a creek, Don Julius remembered, one with a most delightful, cheerful tinkling and burbling, high in the hills, as it ran toward the Vltava. A surge of emotion tumbled over him, staggering him with gratitude that he'd discovered the creek those many months ago - the thought that he might not have seen it and thus would have misunderstood Marketa's message was one to turn his stomach. But on the heels of such relief was the unsettling realization that he surely had missed other cues from Marketa due to his own ignorance of his new environment. He could thank his loathsome father for that; it was only by the king's unjust, callous word that Don Julius were now ensconced in Rozmberk Castle for his treatment and recovery. Only he could release his son from this prison.

Under the crushing weight of his isolation, Don Julius's knees slowly buckled, and he sank to the floor, his back to the wall beneath the window. His chest tight, he ached to be free, to be set loose upon the lands to roam as he had before. His hands clenched and relaxed repeatedly, as if he might squeeze the loneliness from himself or throttle the demons that even now crowded close in his half-lit chamber, muttering terrible, violent ideas to him. His hands slid to his ears, his eyes shut tight, his mind flailed for the lifeline that kept his head above the waterline: _Marketa. Marketa._ He seized upon her as a dying, desperate man, his breath caught in his throat as he relived her divine message to him in the gentle play of the water. Her small alabaster hands, plying the sparkling fluid back and forth...back and forth... her promise of salvation.

She would not let him fall prey to the demons; Marketa alone could keep them away. And, when Don Julius was able to escape his imprisonment - which he was passionately determined to do - he would race to her mystical creek in the hills, and she would forever vanquish the voices by spilling her secrets to him. He had given her his blood, offered his heart, his very soul. Now, Marketa would be the one to give all that he desired. He would take her, they would become one in the sluicing, magical water of her birth, and her secrets would at last be in his possession. Don Julius's breathing quickened, his pulse pounded with nearly sickening force at the dizzying notion of obtaining such critical answers - possibly the very meaning of life itself! - and of melding with his goddess. But these defining chapters of his life, fated to occur, could not take place until he was granted leave of the castle, even if for only a short time.

Raising his head from his trembling hands, he bellowed for the priest. He would have leave of this castle if it required a trail of witless corpses. Nothing would prevent his exodus to Marketa.


End file.
